SpaceX to carry ashes of 100 people into Space

The phrase, “May you rest in heaven”, will turn real when the remains of about 100 people will be carried into Space. Yes, you read that correctly. Elysium Space, a San-Francisco based company, said that the ashes of these people will be launched into Space, today, in a memorial satellite of the company.

The families of the dead persons whose ashes are to be carried into Space, paid about $2,500 to have a sample of their loved ones’ remains placed aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The people whose ashes will be carried include military veterans and also aerospace enthusiasts among others, said Elysium Space in an emailed statement.

Also, the families of these people will be able to track the spacecraft in real-time via an app, when it orbits the earth for around four years and after which it will fall back to earth.

The launch which will be undergoing today is part of a ‘rideshare mission’ being organized by Spaceflight. The company purchased the rocket for accommodating the clients, which can be from schools to commercial businesses to government entities and international organizations.

Spaceflight said that about 64 small satellites from 34 various organizations will be aboard.

The capsules that will be containing the cremated remains that will be sent into Space as part of the Elysium Star 2. Image Source: cdn.cnn.com

But it’s not the first ever a time that any remains of a dead person will be sent into Space, alongside the stars. 1998, a small vial of astronomer Eugene Shoemaker’s ashes crashed into the moon, as part of NASA’s Lunar Prospector mission; it has still remained on the surface of the moon.

The ashes of Star Trek actor James Doohan (who played Scotty on the show) were also sent to Space among 320 sets of ashes on a similar mission to Elysium’s, back in 2012. There were also the remains of Mercury 7 astronaut Gordon Cooper aboard that flight.

The way the world is changing and getting advanced each day, regarding any aspect of life, is surely going to change the way we live in the near future and how we react to events related to us, and in what manner. There will be a huge transformation.